In many cases, medicines come in the form of pills or tablets. Often, neither of these forms meets clinical application requirements. In some cases, the sizes of the pills or tablets are too big to easily swallow in their whole form or are too strong a dosage in some cases. For example, many patients such as children, some geriatrics, or other patients with particular diseases have difficulty swallowing whole pills or tablets. Hence it has been recognized that there is a need in these circumstances to crush pills or tablets medicines into powder and then mix them with food, such as applesauce or jelly or added to a liquid in order to be easily swallowed or better digested.
The need to sometimes split pills or tablets is also long established. According to the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy, pill splitting is a viable means of reducing the cost of the medicine while maintaining the desired therapy when those medications with multiple dosage strengths are priced essentially the same (Policy Digest and Practice Advisory, April 2001). In sum, some people/patients prefer to break “larger size” pills like vitamin into “small” pieces to swallow easier, while some patients would like to order a larger size of the tablets or pills and then split them simply for economic considerations.
A number of “pill crushers” and “pill splitters” are currently available on the marketplace. Generally speaking, the two functions, crushing and splitting, are provided separately. Most of the splitters are portable and designed for individual usage, while various designs of pill crushers are provided to both professional healthcare providers and to the general population for personal use.
Conventional pill crushers rely on various mechanisms including the use of a mortar and pestle for grinding or impacting. Additionally, there have been used various manual or motor driven devices to abrade, compress, fracture or crush the pills or tablets into either fragments or powder. However, all of the current commercial products have certain weaknesses in terms of reliability and efficacy of crushing pills or tablets, particularly for professional care providers which require heavy duty solutions.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,915,637, issued on Jun. 29, 1999 to J. Stuart Parsons, discloses a pill crusher whose operating mechanism is to convert the rotational movement of the handle into the “V” movement of the plates that is pivotally connected with the handle and the base for crushing pills between the plates and the anvil which is vertically fixed to the elongated base. A pouch for receiving the pills to be crushed has also been provided with the apparatus. In this prior apparatus, the crushing action from the “V” movement of the plates to the anvil is not sufficient to pulverize the pills into desired powders in a single action. Repetition is inevitable to get the desired powder. In addition, it is difficult to clean the crushing area during regular maintenances or if the pill pouches are accidentally opened or split. As a result, cross contamination of medicines is possible due to the difficulty in cleaning.
Most of the pill splitters on the market are portable designs for individual and home usage. Some of them rely on impact forces on the blade via pivot connections or simply by manual pressure. Some of them are universal designs adapted for use with the diverse shapes of pills. Known examples of prior art pill splitting devices include U.S. Pat. No. 5,038,475; U.S. Pat. No. 4,763,986; U.S. Pat. No. 6,474,525; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,944,243.
However, there is still a need for a durable commercially oriented pill splitter that can split numerous varieties of pills and tablets in a fast, easy to operate, strength saving, accurate and reliable manner. For example, care providers in nursing homes may need an efficient and reliable way to split various pills or tablets for geriatrics with different medical conditions. In such a situation there is a need for a device designed for large-scale or large volume pill splitting. A multi tablet cutter is currently available on the market for the fast cutting of pills. This multi tablet cutter is sold under the trademark TRU-CUT and is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,527,155. Its principal design is simply like a “hay cutter” with a tablet-holding tray. However, this sequential cutting action of the pills may potentially results in a cut that is not precise. In addition, pieces of a pill may split during this “fast” cutting action, which is less than ideal in therapeutic terms. It is a difficult problem to balance between accuracy and the speed of cutting.
The two significant functions, crushing and splitting, are provided separately in most of the available apparatus. Only few portable devices have the two-in-one design such as a device sold by Med Sun as a deluxe cutter/crusher. However, the personal use design of this product limits its application in high volume commercial use.
Therefore, with consideration to the previous discussion of the prior art, there is a need for a device that is compact and universal in design for crushing and splitting the various shapes of pills or tablets, and operates in an easy but reliable, quiet, strength saving, and efficient manner, and is easy to maintain and clean, and is suitable for both individual and institutional usage, and effectively reduces the likelihood of the contamination of the pills or tablets.
In summary, there is a need for a pill crusher to overcome most of the shortcomings of existing devices. There is a need for an apparatus that is easy to use, strong, reliable, and easy to clean and maintain.